Such methods and devices are known and are regularly used in the automotive industry during the welding together of the body from various partial components. Thus, the manufacture of a body shell takes place roughly in the following way. The partial components of a vehicle, such as the underbody, mounted parts and the like, are prefabricated in plants individually set up for this purpose. This is followed by the joining together of the complete body within a manufacturing assembly position or “Geo-Station”. Following production line processes such as welding, lasing, bonding, riveting, etc. ensure an adequate body rigidity.
The “Geo-Station” has devices designed for ensuring the geometry of the joined overall body. Initially specific partial components of the body are brought into the desired positions and then tacked within the “Geo-Station” by means of stationary clamping devices, such as movable/rotary clamping devices or NC-controlled clamping stations (cf. table 1). Then, further partial components such as underbody components are positioned within the “Geo-Station” by numerically controlled clamping stations. Further partial components, such as side parts, are supplied to the “Geo-Station” by individual, mobile clamping frames or pallets (table 1), in which the corresponding partial components are held and which are suitably timed in within the working process. Following the fastening together of the components to form the overall body the grippers located on the clamping frames or pallets are opened and said frames or pallets, following the passing through of the “Geo-Station” are separated from the body and again supplied to the production sequence.
In another variant for the positioning of the components to be joined together, they are arranged around a stationary clamping island (cf. table) having a fixed geometry and are held in position by the latter during tacking.
The known methods and apparatuses for positioning components to be joined together have, as a result of their very principle, a number of disadvantages shown in summary form in table 1 (source: Agiplan, Automobil Industrie Spezial Fabrikautomation, vol. 47, April 2002). Thus, stationary clamping devices only have a limited model flexibility and are unsuitable for multi-geometries. Numerically controlled clamping stations suffer from disadvantages with regards to plant availability and process security. Type-related clamping pallets only make possible a limited accessibility with respect to the assembly position and suffer from high operating costs. Type-related clamping islands are only suitable to a limited extent for multi-geometries, have high operating costs and are characterized by high space consumption.
TABLE 1Movable/rotary clampingNC-controlledType-relatedType-relateddeviceclamping stationsclamping palletclamping islandClamping procedurestationarystationarymobilemobileHorizontal model−0++flexibility (differentvehicle sizes)Vertical model−+++flexibility (differentmodel variants)Assembly position000+accessibilityMulti-geometries−0+0Plant availability0−++Process security0−++Surface consumption+++−Capital expenditure0++0Operating costs0+00Clamping joining0+++position standardizationOffline programmability−+−−
The problem of the invention is to overcome the prior art disadvantages resulting from the principle and provide a new production technology route, which is in particular characterized by high model flexibility, space saving, good accessibility and an accelerated production sequence.